


Honor to the Elders

by achrilock



Category: XCOM (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Aliens, Art, Books, Cake, Codes & Ciphers, Dystopia, Gen, Radio, Resistance, Science Fiction, Technology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-05-19 11:50:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19356463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achrilock/pseuds/achrilock
Summary: Flanked by her older sister Kiara, and her friends Madison, Ethan, and Leon, Chloe sets out after curfew in the Advent city of Hopehaven to discover the purpose of mysterious AM radio broadcasts, and to find the cottage of the mysterious ‘grandmother’ known as Christina.





	1. Cake With Friends

**Author's Note:**

> This is an unauthorized and unofficial fictional transformative work set in the XCOM universe. All trademarks and copyrighted materials are the property of their respective owners. All characters and events are fictional. Enjoy!

“They’re terrorists,” Kiara said.

“They’re not terrorists, not really. That’s garbage,” Chloe shot back, without much heat in it. This argument had been going on for over a year.

“They blew up an Elder statue and when Advent arrived on the scene to arrest them they started killing all the civilians in the square,” said Kiara, with bitterness and disgust. “Advent had to shoot them all right then and there. The news said they tried to arrest them but they were acting like maniacs!”

The group of five, Kiara, Chloe, Madison, Ethan, and Leon made their way through the shadows of the deep drainage ditch that led across Hopehaven City. They couldn’t use the transit system or the sidewalks above, since they were already something like forty minutes passed curfew. If they were caught the least that would happen is that they would be arrested. The authorities couldn’t afford to take any chances, especially after the incident a few weeks before, whatever the circumstances had actually been. It hadn’t happened in Hopehaven, in fact nobody was even sure where it happened- the news wasn’t terribly specific for security reasons. But everyone they had talked to, at school, at Elder Temple, and in Kiara’s case, at work in the gene therapy hospital, said that it had actually happened and that the rules were tighter everywhere, now.

“XCOM is real, and they don’t hurt civilians!” Chloe shrieked, in a voice that was a bit too loud for everyone’s comfort. Something clattered on the street above and they all froze.

“Can you guys please keep it down?” Leon whispered, his voice insufferably polite, to everyone in the group, as always, and full of something not unlike panic. It was slightly chilly, but Chloe could see him sweating through his shirt and cargo pants.

“Everybody use your fucking inside ‘we’re not where we’re supposed to be’ voices, please!” Madison hissed. Chloe turned to look at her and gave a smile and a nod. Chloe wasn’t the leader of their little group when Kiara wasn’t with them, as such, but she was always the idea girl. Madison was the enforcer, and the practical one. The one who always told Chloe “this is a really stupid idea” and then figured out how exactly they were going to pull it off, and told the others what was what. Madison just looked daggers at everyone from the back of the line, plastic black jacket and pants contrasting with the little plastic flower she always stuffed into her braids- like some kind of outsider from the wastes, an apocalyptic road warrior flower girl. Her dark skin was hard to make out. It was getting darker outside.

Thunder clapped overhead and the air felt heavy with moisture and static. Please let it start raining, Chloe thought. If it starts raining the drones can’t hear us as well and we might actually get there without getting caught. They moved forward, right along the edge of the stagnant water in the bottom of the gully. It was made out of some kind of concrete that didn’t seem to stain or decay, so the brownish green of the stream looked odd against it. It was only thirty feet or so across. Just enough space for the light to get lost, but not so big and open as to make their movements obvious. They were almost to the tunnel that ran beneath the maglev that ringed the city. Almost there. Maybe five minutes and they’d be safe… until the trip back, of course.

“Then why are you even here?” Chloe asked, quietly, to appease Madison and keep poor Leon from fainting.

“Because my idiot little sister and her stupid friends are risking expulsion from university two months after getting in, which is pretty much impossible now anyway,” Kiara said, “and I’m trying to make sure they don’t do anything dumber than sneak out to talk to some old crank living in a trash pile.”

Christina. She meant Christina. Chloe had discovered Christina a few months earlier while watching Ethan build an illegal analog radio, which, if they had been caught doing that they’d be in prison. Chloe liked watching Ethan build stuff like that. She was learning to write software so that she could work in an Advent Security datacenter someday, so she was no stranger to technology. She didn’t want to work for Advent. She didn’t even like Advent, or trust them. But if you didn’t work for Advent, you ended up like Christina, living in stacked cargo containers on the edge of the city. There weren’t any independent businesses or churches or schools or hospitals or anything, anymore. Not since Chloe was a baby. If you didn’t work for Advent you didn’t go to school, and Chloe wanted to learn. If you didn’t work for Advent, you lived in what were called ‘compassionate compounds.’ Supposedly there was plenty of food, not elegant but rationed out regularly. Supposedly people there could leave any time they pleased. Supposedly XCOM didn’t exist and a bunch of terrorists were running around claiming to be XCOM and blowing up statues and murdering citizens. Chloe wanted to learn.

Ethan and Chloe had been in the process of disassembling the radio, while Ethan explained everything in detail while he worked so that Chloe could follow- she loved playing with circuits and Ethan couldn’t carry on a conversation about much else. They had the casing open again and were about to disconnect the little power supply when they had actually heard something. It had been shocking. Using non-Advent frequencies was a big deal. Nobody was supposed to be on those airwaves.

It was a deep, fiery and resonant woman’s voice singing a song like Chloe had never heard. Between bursts of static, she caught the words:

****

**Hello, it's me  
I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet**

Ethan’s eyes had been wider than any Chloe had ever seen. He had reached to smash the radio, but Chloe stopped him, grabbing his arm without thinking. More static.

“Try and bring and back!” Chloe had exclaimed. Ethan did so, but when he found the signal again the song had ended. Christina’s voice had replaced it.

****

**Pity tyrants' reave as  
reckoned, for in writers’ hands  
all things are weapons.**

Then Christina, who’s name they discovered later after many an illicit listening session tucked into some remote corner of their residential block, had started chanting two digit numbers and using phrases that made no sense. Phrases like “The Golden Compass,” and “The White Mountains,” and “The Giver.”

Now, in the gully, in the tunnel, Ethan was holding a little box in his hands that chirped quietly every time a drone was within about a hundred yards, and not participating in the conversation at all. He didn’t even look concerned about what they were up to. He was just quietly walking along and staring into the glowing screen. That was Ethan.

They were, in fact, on their way to meet Christina. They couldn’t figure out the numbers or the weird phrases, but they did figure out where she was based on a kind of ongoing story that she would tell every time she made a broadcast. It was all shrouded in riddle and some silly fantasy story about mountains and castles and dead monsters that were walking around and how to find the cottage without being eaten. Leon, who had been obsessed with maps since he was little because, he said, he wanted to go on an adventure someday to someplace where Advent wasn’t around, had had the notion of drawing a map that went with the story. Kiara had drawn it for them, probably glad that they were committing crime at her and Chloe’s place instead of out where they would get pinched. Plus, she was the only one of the group who could draw something that looked like what it was supposed to be. Then, Ethan had had the idea to compare the map to a map of the city, and there it had been. A path to Christina. “The King’s road,” as Christina called it.

Christina had given specific times of day in the story when it was safe to “travel the hidden paths of the kingdom,” and “when grandmother will be at the cottage baking.” She had also promised “story time for good little children.” That had intrigued them, and had also guaranteed that there was no way in Elders’ sight Kiara was letting Chloe and her gang of misfits go alone.

They emerged from the near total dark of the tunnel into the pouring rain. Thank the Elders for that. And then, Chloe saw it. The compassionate compound, the stack of cargo containers turned residential units, standing twenty high in some places. There was a cement plaza with a few lights, not a very fancy place. No landscaping except weeds. It was only about thirty yards across, but they couldn’t go that way. Two sensor towers scanned the surface. You could see the scanning beams, which seemed odd to Chloe. Madison probably noticed her looking at them because she snorted and said, “they want you to know you’re being watched.” Chloe, from what she had already learned at school and at her internship with security, couldn’t disagree.

“We should turn around,” Kiara said. “This was a horrible idea. I can’t believe how irresponsible I’ve been.” She looked at Chloe. “I didn’t spend five years taking care of you when we were refugees so that I could watch you get taken by Advent on some stupid quest to see someone who is probably either not even real or an Advent Security agent.”

“We can go that way,” said Leon softly. He pointed to some weeds along the north side of the square. The sensor towers kissed the top of the weeds, but they were deep enough that the LIDAR probably wouldn’t see them in there.

Kiara sighed, still dressed in her white clinician’s uniform from earlier in the day.

“Crawl on your bellies and don’t say anything,” Madison whispered, looking at each person in the group with a seriousness that Kiara couldn’t even manage, being eight years older. Even Kiara nodded ascent, and they went.

It was nasty and it took about twenty minutes to make it all the way around to the fence surrounding the compound. The rain was making the dirt into a pasty mud, and they didn’t dare move quick enough to disturb the tall grass any more than the weather would have otherwise done. By the time they reached the fence, they were all filthy and soaking wet. Even Chloe was beginning to have doubts about the whole endeavor.

“There’s a hole over here,” Ethan said evenly, and pointed to a spot in the fence that had clearly been intentionally cut and then laid back in place to make it appear, from a distance, that nothing was amiss. They slipped carefully through, and Madison folded the chain link back into place.

It didn’t take long to find the unit, the cottage, described in the story. It was on the lowest level at the corner nearest the hole in the fence. They formed a semi-circle around the door.

“Well?” Madison said, looking at Chloe. “You gonna do it or we going home?” She didn’t sound like she really cared either way. Chloe knocked three times, and then gave a little quarter tap on the metal, and waited.

“What do you want?” An angry voice from inside. “Who are you?” The voice sounded very belligerent, like someone on the verge of physical violence.

Chloe choked out the words that the story said she was supposed to say, filled with dread that this was the wrong place or that none of it was real. “Tyrants,” she said. The door opened immediately. A smiling women in her early forties appeared, the anger and belligerence gone from her as if it had never been there at all.

“Come in,” she said. “Want some cake?”

They all looked at each other, and at the woman.

“Christina?” Chloe asked, nervously.

“Come in and have some cake,” the woman said. “Get out of that rain. It’s passed curfew, you know?” She winked. They went inside.

The woman closed the door, and locked three huge metal bars into place behind it. Rain pattered on the exterior of the unit. And, in fact, a circular cake with white icing sat on the center of a little table.

“I’m Christina,” the woman said. “Also known as Grandmother. I’m the one on the radio.”

“I found you on there!” Ethan blurted out. Chloe just smiled at him. What a dork. But, she thought, he did and this was probably a big deal for him because of that.

“So who’s idea was it to sneak over here and risk getting eaten by Advent,” Christina asked. “And eat that cake. I spent most of the afternoon making it hoping somebody would show up.”

They sat down and started eating the cake.

“Sorry we’re so dirty,” Chloe said, looking down at the metal floor covered in patches of mismatched carpet.

“They always are,” Christina said and smiled again. “So, you have questions?”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Kiara said, not unkindly, but not sweetly either.

“Yeah, of course you’re the skeptic,” said Christina. “Not trying to be rude, but that patch on your chest tells me what you do and they screen everyone who works for them thoroughly. If you were eager to see me or talk to me I wouldn’t let you back out of here.”

“Is...” Chloe forgot her manners and just asked. “Is XCOM real and are they as bad as the news says?”

“Now why would I know anything about XCOM?” Christina asked, sounding mildly offended. “I tell stories about kings and monsters on the radio.”

“On the fucking really illegal radio,” Madison said, but she was grinning.

Christina laughed. “The ones that make it usually have one like you, too.” She patted Madison’s shoulder.

Chloe remembered herself. “So I’m Chlo...”

“Nope!” Christina said. “Don’t tell me your names. Don’t tell me what you do or where you live or what you’re called. You know my name because you have to know it to find me. If they find my… my fucking illegal radio… what do you think their inquisitors will do when they pick through my memories and see all of your faces and hear all of your names and everything about you?”

“The inquisitors are real?”

“And they can really read minds?”

“Come on, you’re full of shit.”

Everyone was speaking at once.

Christina nodded. “Yes. They’re real. And XCOM is real. And probably all of those stories you’ve heard about everything that happened twenty years ago, the ones you never hear in school or at church, those are all true too. So, please, do as I say and just ask your questions and listen. We’ll get to know each other later, maybe, but there are ways of doing these things that keep us all safe.”

“How do you know anything about XCOM?” Kiara asked, her voice placid.

“Because I used to bring the Commander his coffee every morning in the old days, during the invasion.”

“Oh, you got the coffee, so you’re definitely somebody we can trust,” Madison said.

Christina smiled. “I got the coffee for everyone in the Geosphere because it was on the way to the level where the communications relays were. The communications relays I was in charge of operating.”

“You...” Chloe was thinking out loud. “You probably heard a lot, then. About what was happening?”

“You’re damned right I did,” Christina said.

“Were they peaceful?” Chloe asked. “Did our governments really just attack them for no reason?”

Christina laughed but it was an empty, sad sound. “No, honey. They dropped nano-chemical weapons on our major cities, abducted people to experiment on, and when XCOM started fighting back they went into population centers and started murdering thousands indiscriminately. We used to call them terror missions.”

“So...” Leon asked meekly, “so the Elders weren’t always watching over us, and the governments of the world didn’t ask for Advent to take care of us?”

“Hell no,” said Christina. “The global Council, the people we at XCOM worked for, was infiltrated by the Elders- who are actually called ethereals, and no, they aren’t gods, but that’s another story. They used bribery, murder, blackmail, fear, whatever they could to convince politicians not to fight. We lost nation after nation, our support dwindled, and one day the Council called us and said the project was over. Very few of us made it out of headquarters, because when the call was over they started bombing it.”

“So now you guys are, what… hiding out in the wastes and attacking civilians and art in the cities?” Kiara asked. She was getting angry. Chloe knew that Kiara had been around and old enough to know what was happening in those days, but she worked for Advent now, because there was peace. The contradiction had always made Kiara uncomfortable.

“The statue isn’t art,” Christina said. “Well, it is art, it was art. It was very beautiful art. But it was also propaganda being used to justify atrocities.”

Kiara slapped the table. “What atrocities! That ended with the war. Everyone gets along, now. I know because I work at a place, a place built and run by Advent, that helps people every day.”

Christina sighed and shook her head. “You know how when you guys at the hospital find someone with particular genetic markers and your supervisors tell you that they need to go to Central Care for special treatment?”

Kiara nodded.

“They don’t go to a bigger, better hospital. There is no Central Care,” Christina said, gently.

“Where, then?” Kiara asked.

“Black sites,” Christina said. “They go to black sites and they don’t ever come out. A lot of things happen in those places, but beneficial medical care isn’t one of them.”

“So why the fuck you all blow up a statue?” Madison asked, genuine curiosity in her tone. “If y’all military badasses from back in the day why don’t you go get those people outta there instead of going into town and breaking things?”

“Because XCOM needs recruits,” Christina said. “Because we need friends. We need people who do things other than fighting. Bringing down the statue tells people that we’re still here, and that we can fight Advent.”

“Like what?” Chloe asked. “What else does XCOM need?” This was both terribly fascinating and disheartening. There was no way she would be working for Advent now, and part of her had the seeds of this understanding even if she hadn’t quite grasped the complete idea.

“Like what I do,” Christina said. “Like gathering information. Like spreading information. Like helping to tell people the truth and destroy the lies that Advent feeds to them.”

“How, exactly, and save the slogans, does destroying a statue and killing a bunch of civilians help with that?” Kiara asked.

“First,” Christina said, “they didn’t kill any civilians. They destroyed the statue, because it was an evil glorification of a lie that was being used to make other lies more real to people. They were about to leave, and Advent Security showed up and tried to kill them. So, they killed them back.”

“Great,” Kiara said. “Advent police are human beings too, you know!” Chloe could see tears forming in her sister’s eyes. She was really angry and frustrated, now.

“Are they, though?” Christina said. “You’ve seen those face plates they always wear, even when they’re indoors or around the security stations? The mouth is the only part that’s still really human. The rest is… something else. They’ve been altered in ways we don’t quite understand yet, and they’re all sort of connected somehow. They act more like arms or legs of a single organism. It’s hard to explain. We’re still trying to really understand it ourselves. Anyway, the statue thing was basically our way of saying hello, we’re still here.”

Christina stood up, then. “So, cake’s almost gone and time’s almost up. Any more questions? And then I’ve got one for all of you.”

“What are the numbers and weird phrases?” Chloe asked. Ethan nodded agreement.

“They’re books… and page numbers, right?” Kiara asked Christina.

Everyone looked at her in astonishment and confusion, except Christina.

“Yep,” Christina said. She smiled at Kiara.

“What are...” Asked Madison.

“You know the data they give you at school and church and work to read?” Kiara asked. “Books are like that. We used to have them before… before the war.”

“Gold star for the skeptic,” Christina said. “Yeah, they were like the data you get now, except anyone could make them. Some were in data form like today, and some were made of paper and people kept them in their homes. Some had information and taught you things, like they do now, and some were just stories that entertained you or taught you… other things that the ones with information couldn’t.”

“So why the numbers?” Ethan asked.

Christina turned to him. “The numbers tell you where in the book to look. The ‘weird phrases,’ as you all put it, are the title of the book. Some people, especially people in the areas outside the Advent cities, still have these books, and most of Advent haven’t read any of them or lack the context to really understand them. It’s how we send messages right out in the open, and all Advent hears is nonsense.”

“How do you know what the message is, though?” Asked Chloe. “Is there only a little bit on each...”

“Page,” said Kiara.

“On each page,” Chloe finished.

Christina looked at Kiara and they seemed to Chloe to be sharing a kind of sad secret.

“You listen to yourself,” Christina said, “and what you’re thinking and feeling, and you look at what’s happening in the world around you, and the message becomes very clear.”

Madison fumed. “So what the hell you want us to do? Blow up another statue for you?”

“No,” Christina replied. “You would only get yourselves and others hurt. I want you to make some artwork and give it out to people.”

They all stared at her blankly. All except for Kiara, who sighed and started walking around the room by herself.

“What kind of artwork?” Chloe asked.

Christina went to a metal cabinet and pulled out a plastic bag. There was actual paper inside. A big stack of it. She handed it to Chloe.

“These are blank sheets of paper,” Christina said. “And here is some paint.” She handed a large plastic bottle to Madison, who took it more eagerly than Chloe would have expected. Then she handed Chloe another plastic bag with a single sheet inside.

“Take these weird phrases, and put them on these sheets of paper. Pick your favorites. Any way you want. Draw little pictures on them if you want to, I dunno aliens getting smashed or being ridiculous… whatever you like.” Christina said, looking at all of them, except Kiara, in turn.

“Then what?” Madison asked.

“Then,” Christina said, “and this is the part that poor mom is going to hate, and with good reason...” Kiara turned to her and shook her head. “… then I want you to just leave them around the city. Quietly. When no one is looking. Just leave them in places you know people will find them and see them. Put them on walls and things if you can do it without getting caught, but do not get caught! If they catch you they’ll arrest you, reprogram you, or if you get the wrong group of Advent they’ll just have you tortured and killed.”

Chloe and the others just stood quietly. Kiara had more tears coming out of her eyes, but she wasn’t making any other sound or protest. Probably, Chloe thought, because she knew what Chloe was about to say.

“I’ll do it.” She said.

“So will I,” said Madison.

Ethan, and to Chloe’s astonishment, even Leon, just nodded at her and Christina.

“Radio guy,” Christina said. “I’ve got another project for you, if you’re up to it.”

Ethan shrugged and gave her a questioning look.

“Think you can build some more of those little radios and hand them out to people you know who won’t turn you in, and preferably who aren’t reckless enough to get caught with them?”

“Sure!” Ethan said, with, to Chloe’s surprise, actual audible and visible excitement.

“Thank you,” Christina said. “You have no idea how important small things like this are for XCOM, and for our people.” She took each of their hands in turn, and looked each of them in the eye. She put her arms around Kiara and hugged her. Kiara did the same, but said nothing.

“Come back in a week,” said Christina, “and be very, very careful. Don’t talk to anyone except your group about what you are doing. If you can find others to help you, that’s great, but only people you’ve known for a long time- people you trust.”

They left Christina’s cottage, all of them with a shocked sort of daze in the way they carried themselves back to the fence and the tall grass. The rain was slowing down. Leon went in first, with Ethan right behind him. Chloe and Kiara went in next, with Madison close behind.

They had almost reached the entrance to the tunnel when a LIDAR beam hit Leon directly from above. Chloe was confused for a brief moment and glanced at the towers. It wasn’t one of those. The beam came from an Advent drone. Leon froze and looked up, clearly terrified and shaking. The dart from the drone’s underbelly hit him in the neck and he dropped immediately to the ground.

“Get in the tunnel!” Madison screamed.

They ran for the entrance as the drone began a warbling scream into the quiet night.

***


	2. Sleepover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An Advent drone attacks Leon, and closes in on the rest of the group. A night of sirens and revelations follows.

The tunnel, it turned out, wasn’t going to save them. They all made it inside, but they went no further. Even Madison stood looking confused about what to do next. That worried Chloe more than anything, which was odd considering the situation, the hopeless, dangerous situation they were in. Nobody wanted to leave Leon.

The LIDAR beam scanned the tunnel entrance. The drone seemed almost excited when it hit their faces in turn. It made a warbling noise and shot down toward the entrance, toward the group standing perfectly still and staring into the red light. Then, a sound like thunder echoed into the concrete space above and around them. Chloe had never heard anything like that before. For a moment she was shocked. She had assumed the drone would use some sort of weapon on them, but nothing she had ever seen or learned about at security had ever indicated that Advent had weapons that sounded like that.

The drone seemed to disintegrate. Orange streaks appeared over and through its metal body and it just… fell apart in mid air and dropped straight toward the ground in front of them. Christina stood behind the place where the drone had fallen, holding something that looked to Chloe like a plasma rifle, but it certainly wasn’t a plasma rifle.

“What the fuck?” Madison whispered in awe.

“This,” said Christina, “is called a shotgun.” She hoisted it once and part of it moved, making a scraping, clicking noise. “And we all need to get out of here right now.”

“What about Leon,” Kiara said, in a flat tone that Chloe recognized as the voice she used at work when things had gotten so hectic that slipping into a false calm was the only way to get through the day. “What about your place, your things… they’ll...”

“I know what they’ll do,” said Christina, “and I’ve prepared for that. We all have. But we need to go right now. How far is your place?” She slung the weapon over her back, bent down, and to Chloe’s surprise lifted Leon off the ground easily and draped him over her right shoulder.

“Not far, maybe fifteen minutes?” Kiara replied.

“We need to maybe half that,” Christina said. “In ten minutes we won’t be able to move, and there won’t be any hiding from them when they figure out what’s happened and deploy in large numbers.”

“She’s right,” Chloe said. “There will be probably thirty or forty people here soon, and twice as many drones. Plus, they’ll start putting out security alerts for our faces everywhere.”

“Don’t worry about that part,” Christina said. “Just move, right now. Lead the way.”

They didn’t sneak quietly, this time. They ran. Even Christina ran, with Leon’s gangly frame over her shoulder. Small as he was, he had to weigh probably 150 at least. Fortunately, Chloe thought, the noise they were making splashing along the concrete tunnel and the gully afterward, and the echoes of their footfalls, were rapidly vanishing into the sounds of sirens and radio traffic fragments drifting down through the air toward their group.

Chloe caught one bit in particular, in the harsh mechanical Advent language the elite security forces used. The elite security forces that Christina had said maybe weren’t actually human. Almost everyone in the city knew the language. It was taught from an early age. People couldn’t speak it without the Advent equipment, but it was the language in which orders were issued, and orders were to be obeyed. Of course, Chloe thought, given the circumstances there were other schools of thought on that point.

“… thermal signatures indicate five insurgents heading … one drone destroyed- no local data intact check central data and send immediately … lockdown protocol in progress...”

“Oh no,” Chloe said.

“What?” Kiara asked, from behind her.

“I heard it,” Christina huffed. “We need to pick up the pace.”

The whole world seemed to catch fire and night became day. It burned Chloe’s eyes. There weren’t any shadows to hide in, anymore. Fortunately, they were still in the gully and as long as no one looked down they would make it to the park near their building soon. Chloe saw a few helmets above the concrete railing at the top of the ditch, but so far they seemed preoccupied with their tablets and with each other.

Then, it came. “Citizens, this is the Speaker. Hopehaven City is now under lockdown until further notice. No one is to leave their home or place of work. An accident has occurred at the power station and dangerous radiation has been released into the city. For your safety, stay indoors.”

“What?” Madison cried.

“That’s crap,” Ethan said. “Advent power production doesn’t produce any radiation.”

“They don’t want to risk everyone knowing that someone hurt them,” Christina said. “They have our trail. They don’t need anyone to help them find us.”

“How do we lose them?” Kiara asked. “We can’t just go to our home if they can follow us like that. We’ll just lead them to where we’re hiding! Where Chloe and I live!”

“Is there any water around?” Christina asked. “Like a pond or a fountain or something?”

“In the park,” Kiara said. “We’re almost there. But what...”

They made it to the dense trees that lined the perfectly manicured landscape of the recreation area right outside the building she and Kiara lived in. Christina told them all to get in the pond and completely submerge themselves in the water. The air was more than chilly now, and the water felt freezing. Christina dunked Leon under, careful to cover his nose and mouth with her hand. Then, they made their way down the utility ramp that led into the basement of the building. Chloe and Ethan had disabled the maintenance door’s locking mechanism long ago.

“Take everything off but your undies,” Christina said. “And shake your arms and legs.”

“What?!” Everyone at once.

“If we track water through the whole building they’ll know which unit you’re in,” Christina said.

They did as they were told. Chloe was all but frozen now. The mud from earlier, however, was gone, so that was nice. Nobody showed any embarrassment. They were all too scared and too tired to care. Madison started to collect their clothing and made as if to open the lid to the dumpster.

“No,” Christina said. “Get a bag out of there and dump it.”

Madison did as Christina asked, garbage clattering back into the container as The Speaker’s voice boomed in the night and the sirens grew closer. After she had stuffed it all into the garbage bag, Christina ran back the way they had come toward the pond. She picked up something off the ground, a rock maybe, and put it into the bag. She threw it into the pond and it sank almost immediately. She made her way back to the group just as the red lights of Advent appeared around the corner of the next building.

“Inside!” Kiara hissed. No one argued.

The great thing about being under curfew, and now under city-wide lockdown conditions, Chloe thought, was that no one was around in the hallways or common areas. The place felt empty. Nothing but haunting holographic images of plants or art and screens repeating The Speaker’s message over and over again.

“How did he know about this small thing so quickly?” Chloe whispered to Christina.

“He didn’t,” she said. “It’s pre-recorded, probably. A standard line of crap ready-to-go if anything unusual should happen.” She looked around for a moment. “What unit are you guys in?” She whispered to Kiara.

“314,” Kiara said. “Two levels up from this one.”

“Alright, you all go on ahead,” said Christina. “I’ll catch up. Can one of you take sleepyhead for me?”

She handed Leon’s slumped figure to Ethan and Madison. To Chloe’s shock, just before their group rounded the corner to the elevator, Christina began running through the hallway banging on every third or fourth door, and then quickly moving on.

A few minutes later they made it to the apartment she shared with her sister. They laid Leon on the couch and Kiara covered him up with a blanket. She then retrieved several of her work uniforms and handed them out to everyone except Chloe. They were genderless jumpsuits, so they didn’t look too out of place, other than Ethan’s, which was a little too tight. A few minutes later, three light taps on their metal door, and Christina had joined them.

“Can I get one of those?” She asked Kiara. Kiara had one ready for her. “And you got another blanket that radio guy can cover up with? They’ll be here soon and his clothes don’t fit. They’re rigid, not stupid.” Kiara nodded and did as Christina had asked.

“Where is your data terminal?” Christina asked.

Chloe showed her to the wall display tucked between the kitchen and the living area. To everyone’s horror Christina pulled up the Advent Security feed, and selected the ‘tip’ option. She then proceeded to register a complaint about some angry people out after curfew who were banging on the door of unit 314. Since the city was under lockdown, they presumably hadn’t opened the door to see who it was. She gave her name as Ansel Adams. When she had finished, she pointed to Ethan. “You’re Ansel,” she said. “Lay down on the floor and pretend to be asleep so they won’t give you a retinal scan.”

Ethan looked alarmed. “What if they give me a retinal scan?”

“Shotgun,” said Christina.

Madison laughed nervously. Even Kiara smiled a little.

“Everyone settle in and try and calm down,” said Christina. “Kiara, can we put on some quiet music or something? Do you have any games downloaded on this thing?”

Sure enough, a few minutes later the panel beside the door illuminated in Advent red. Advent didn’t knock. They came in whenever they wanted to come in. Weapons raised, four Advent troopers entered the apartment. Three of them aimed their weapons at the people in the room who were awake. One of the troopers, presumably their leader, addressed Christina.

“Which one of you is Ansel?”

“He’s sleeping,” said Christina. “I made the call because I forgot my login credentials. I used his name.”

“You know that’s not allowed,” the trooper said, in the mechanical Advent tongue.

“I know,” said Christina, “I know, it’s just that I thought it was important to report dangerous people causing trouble during a lockdown, especially when the city is in danger. I’m sorry I broke the rules.”

“Did you open the door? Did you see them?”

“No,” said Christina. “We’re not supposed to do that during a lockdown.”

The trooper nodded, but no emotion to it. He turned to the others and then over his shoulder. “If they return, or if anything else happens, notify Advent at once.”

“Yes, sir,” said Christina. “We will.”

The troopers left and the door closed. Everyone sat in astonished silence.

* * *

Two hours later, Ansel- Ethan, really was asleep. Leon hadn’t moved, but Kiara had checked him over thoroughly and concluded that he had simply been heavily sedated. Madison was drifting in and out in a chair. It was nearly four in the morning. Chloe, Christina, and Kiara sat at the table drinking tea.

“But they know who we are,” said Kiara. “They have the security footage from the drone!”

“No they don’t,” Christina smiled.

“And how exactly do you conclude this?” Kiara sneered.

“Well, if I can borrow a trope from the movies you and I used to watch, we’ve got a guy.”

“A guy?” Asked Chloe.

“Yeah,” Christina said, clearly a little amused and satisfied with herself. “There is a group of Advent who, for whatever reasons, aren’t happy with the way things work. Some of them are human and some of them are augmented the way the troopers are augmented. They still have opinions and feelings, though, same as anyone else. They call themselves Skirmishers.”

“Now you’re just lying,” Kiara said.

Christina laughed. “I know. I know. They aren’t very popular with the resistance, but when something like this happens, there’s no better group of friends to have.”

“So, how are these...” Chloe started.

“Skirmishers,” said Christina.

“How are they going to help us?”

“That name, the name I gave on the security feed, lets our guy know that something happened and it’s going to be a problem and it needs to be cleaned up,” Christina said.

“How does he know it’s you, and how does he know what ‘it’ is?” Kiara asked.

“I’m the only one who uses that name,” said Christina. “He knows it’s me, and where else in the city was a drone busted with scattershot this evening? That footage is history, or rather, no longer part of history. It’s already deleted.”

“Unbelievable,” said Chloe. “Advent… helping XCOM. I wonder if I know him.”

“Maybe,” said Christina. “But don’t you dare go trying to guess who it is.”

“Yeah,” said Chloe, “I suppose not.”

Relief oozed out of Kiara. Chloe smiled at her. She smiled back and seemed to sink into her chair a little more comfortably. “So, you knew the Commander?’ Kiara asked. “And there was actually a Commander? We all thought it was propaganda. We figured there was a team somewhere and he was a made up figurehead.”

“Oh, there was a team, a large team of experts and specialists and everything you’d expect,” Christina said, “but the Commander was real, too. In fact, he’s still real. He’s alive.”

“How!” Kiara exclaimed. “Surely Advent captured him or killed him or something after they shut XCOM down.”

“They did capture him,” Christina said. “And we captured him back.”

“Isn’t he, like,” Chloe said slowly. “Old?”

“Well, yes and no,” Christina said. “When the Reapers found him, they’re sort of… our uncultured feral allies… crazy and brave and they actually eat Advent, but that’s a story for another time. When the Reapers found him Advent had him in some kind of space suit running wargame scenarios for them over and over and over again in some kind of dreamstate. Chronologically, he’s close to my age. A few years younger.”

“Was he some sort of general or something before the war?” Kiara asked.

Christina laughed for a long time, genuine mirth in it.

“What?” Chloe asked.

“When XCOM found him he spent his time playing video games, watching a lot of movies, and writing rebellious political screeds,” Christina said. “They just sort of happened upon him and he just sort of happened upon them.”

“Why would XCOM have anything to do with someone like that?” Kiara gasped.

“Because he wins,” Christina said.

“What was he like during the war?” Chloe asked.

Christina looked up at the ceiling. “He rarely slept. His days were regimented, but not, if that makes sense. Everything was kind of a categorization of immediate need. He worried about the people who went out on the Skyranger or who flew the jets or did reconnaissance. He watched them constantly, when it was possible. He didn’t actually control every tiny detail of every mission, even though we worked in small teams, that part was actually bullshit- that’s not how these things work, but he did make suggestions or give orders in real time. When we lost somebody or something went very wrong he was also impossible to be around.”

Kiara blinked at her. Chloe just listened.

“He drank a hell of a lot, too,” Christina said. “Hell, half the time he was drunk in the Geosphere.” She laughed.

“Well then, that explains things,” Kiara said acidly.

“Yeah,” Christina said, “he was a mess, and probably is now that he lost the Advent spacesuit, but honey, that guy saved entire cities while smashed. When every day demands the impossible, you adapt to it however you need to, and the Commander was a person for whom seeing the invisible amidst chaos and impossibility was crucial, because if a day came when he couldn’t we would lose.”

“We did lose,” Kiara said.

“Did we?” Christina asked. “We’re here sitting at your kitchen table, still fighting, still working against Advent, and presumably your sister here and her pals are still going to help with that?” She lifted her eyebrow at Chloe.

“They shot my friend with a dart for standing in a field,” Chloe said. “Do you really need to ask me that question?”

Kiara sighed, but she wasn’t upset. Christina smiled. “He always said we might lose,” she said. “He said to us, over and over again, especially near to the end when we started losing Council support and public opinion was hit or miss and we started losing planes and captains and colonels and we were feeding rookies all kinds of beautiful patriotic poison to get them to go out and face mutons and mechs so that the seasoned people could do what needed doing, he said a resistance, and that’s what we are even with the trappings of power and all the experts in the world because the aliens are much stronger than we are, rarely actually wins. The job of a resistance is to slow the enemy down, make them waste resources, show their true colors to people. The job of a resistance is to stand between regular people and the malevolent who want to harm them for as long as it can, because every single person, lost or saved matters. We’re actually better off, now, because it’s his kind of fight.”

Kiara raised her voice a little bit. “But what’s the point if you can’t ultimately win?” She asked. “You want to grind more people up to face an enemy that’s already destroyed the world once and will probably do worse if you antagonize them?”

Christina sighed. “Spaceman would say that it doesn’t matter if we win or lose, because our job is to make sure that as many people as possible are safe and alive- and this is the kind of stuff he went around saying a lot even though people laughed at him for it- and if possible a little bit happy.”

“But Advent was doing that, for the most part...” Kiara started and then just closed her mouth.

“Right,” Christina said. “Except for when they weren’t. It’s okay. You’re not stupid or evil for thinking that way. Peace is always better, and there are trade-offs in any culture, human or alien, that we make to get along. It’s not better, though, when it doesn’t belong to everybody equally.”

“Yes,” said Chloe, feeling both angry and a little hopeful at the same time. It was a strange sensation.

“The Commander used to say,” Christina continued, “that whether there’s a God or gods or perfect morality or whatever, that practically speaking, right and wrong, good and evil, those things are made by the actions people take. He said that those things were decisions people made and the things people did, and not some kind of abstraction. He was right about that. We fought and we keep fighting because there are some actions that can’t be allowed to go unanswered, some people that need defending who can’t defend themselves. He said we make the universe what it is every day by what we decide to think, say, and do, and real people have to live in that world.”

“What, did he just sit around all day moralizing?” Kiara asked.

Christina laughed again. “Hell no, he said most of that at the bar, or late at night when he was reviewing the day’s operations. I think it was more for himself than anyone else. It’s what kept him going when there wasn’t anything else to hold onto.”

“You had a bar at XCOM headquarters?” Kiara laughed.

“It was sort of an improvised thing,” Christina said, smiling. “Hell of a music collection in the jukebox, though.”

Outside the sirens began to die away just as the first light appeared in the sky. The Speaker finally stopped repeating himself on every screen, and the curfew-ending chirps echoed throughout Hopehaven.

“I’ve gotta get some sleep,” Kiara said. “I’m at the clinic in four hours.”

“I have school,” said Chloe.

Christina nodded. Kiara showed her to her office and made a place for her on the floor. Before Kiara and Chloe headed to their rooms, she called after them quietly, “your friend is safe, and you know more than you knew yesterday, and you’re helping people. You’re all doing the right thing.”

Chloe and Kiara looked at each other. Chloe nodded. Kiara shrugged and hugged her sister. They dimmed the lights in the apartment and each rested as they could until the first rays of sunlight poured in through the windows.

* * *


End file.
